Here it comes Need some general advice on presenting physics ideas

[Frogeyedpeas]

Hello everyone, I am a high school student and am attending the Rutgers ASI general information meeting this coming sunday,

I have (unrelated to the program) been writing an idea on solving some amount of dark matter mass through the use of topology and GR and my physics teacher likes my idea so much that he has scheduled me to present my ideas in front of a group of professors at the meeting.

That being said I have never formally presented a science theory, let alone in a professional setting such as this so I would be willing to ask for as much advice as you can give me when it comes to this sort of thing. My background education is as follows:

No formal physics training (at all) however I have self studied and learned quite a bit on my own and can deal with SR and GR both conceptually as well as mathematically...

Mathematics education is multivariable calculus, partial differential equations, some linear algebra, a good intuitive understanding of topology (no formal training)

So I'm probably the least qualified student to speak and theorize on the topic yet I find that I am very confident on the correctness of what I have written. In terms of presenting I have presented all sorts of things before but never have I done something so (real) I suppose.

 

[twofish-quant]

So I'm probably the least qualified student to speak and theorize on the topic yet I find that I am very confident on the correctness of what I have written. In terms of presenting I have presented all sorts of things before but never have I done something so (real) I suppose.

The best advice is to be less confident about what you have written, and look at presenting your ideas as a chance for people to try to knock them into the ground with the goal of improving them.

Academic presentations tend to be like boxing matches, and since you are new, you may find the people looking at your ideas to pull their punches since it can be quite painful for a newbie to enter the boxing ring for the first time. On the other hand, your advisor thinks that your ideas are good enough to present, and if during the presentation, you find that people are being extremely negative and critical, that's a sign that people think that you and your ideas are good enough to stand a good punching.

One other thing that may surprise you is how difficult it is to explain an idea. You may also find yourself explaining things that are obvious to you, but realize what is obvious to you isn't obvious to everyone else.

The other thing is to to prepare handouts so that people can put notes.